Gone With the Green of Summer
by Inside Lines
Summary: He promised to protect her, but how could he have known that he could not fully keep that promise? A songfic. Please read and review.


Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or My Immortal by Evanescence.  
  
Gone With the Green of Summer  
By Gray Alexa  
  
Impossibly incomparable to anything is the only phrase that can adequately describe it, but that doesn't keep him from trying.  
  
I'M SO TIRED OF BEING HERE  
  
SUPPRESSED BY ALL MY CHILDISH FEARS  
  
Summer again. Hot, sticky, bright summer. Where it would have been a welcome gift a few months ago, the sun is a ruthless fiend now. Strange how we always wish for what we don't have, even with such simple things as sun in winter and snow in summer, he thinks.  
  
AND IF YOU HAVE TO LEAVE  
  
I WISH THAT YOU WOULD JUST LEAVE  
  
He sits with his legs sprawled in front of him, the openings at the bottoms of his pants open to the breeze. Leaning back on his hands, the grass is soft and clothlike. The slight wind roars in his delicate ears, but he doesn't much care. He is too deep in thought to care.  
  
BECAUSE YOUR PRESENCE STILL LINGERS HERE  
  
AND IT WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE  
  
Looking like a silver cloud from a distance, his hair waves and flutters carelessly behind him, just as his mind remains in his past. Only a year it's been, but his concept of time has been distorted. At some times it is weeks, and at others lifetimes since he has seen her. Touched her, held her . . . kissed her.  
  
Oh, that intoxicating scent she gave! How unknowingly she had him bound by yet another, even more magical means than his beaded necklace! He fingers it now, staring absentmindedly at a flower of the same color growing beside him. Did she say something about this plant having medicinal properties?  
  
He wishes he could remember.  
  
THESE WOUNDS WON'T SEEM TO HEAL  
  
THIS PAIN IS JUST TOO REAL  
  
THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH THAT TIME CANNOT ERASE  
  
He found a poet in himself, but it was already too late to write anything romantic. There is only regret and old dreams now awoken from.  
  
It happened last year. During the summer, in fact. It seemed as if an utterly endless winter followed immediately, completely passing over autumn. Or perhaps that was because he disappeared into his safe thoughts and treasured memories for a long time afterwards. Once he left that tortured escape, he was changed. No, he could never revert back to his familiar icy prison where none could touch his heart without getting theirs ripped apart first. She had forever changed that with her gentle embrace. But though even he himself cannot put his finger on it, he is different. For better or worse, he cannot say.  
  
WHEN YOU CRIED I'D WIPE AWAY ALL OF YOUR TEARS  
  
WHEN YOU'D SCREAM I'D FIGHT AWAY ALL OF YOUR FEARS  
  
AND I'VE HELD YOUR HAND THROUGH ALL OF THESE YEARS  
  
BUT YOU STILL HAVE ALL OF ME  
  
She called, and he responded. Always he knew if she needed him, even if he wasn't consciously aware of it. He thought so, at least, even if others said he was imagining things when he suddenly became even more alert and tapped his fingers on his sword's hilt. He would defend her with his very life if his courageous abilities proved insufficient.  
  
And her crying. Even in the beginning he dreaded it like no foe ever fought. Still more so when he was the cause, which was too often. It was when he refused to trust her, when he said something wrong, and some other occasions. However much his dismay at her tears, for a long time he couldn't console her. How to calm her without letting her into his protective shell?  
  
He never found out, but somehow he did.  
  
He could take care of her, he always thought. She was his, and he was hers. She took care of him in her own way, too. They belonged to one another long before they knew it.  
  
YOU USED TO CAPTIVATE ME  
  
BY YOUR RESONATING LIGHT  
  
He rubs his hands. It makes him ache merely remembering.  
  
She was so different from him, even in appearance. He once thought her beauty was only inherited from her predecessor, but she made it her own. A black river flowed down her back and through his fingers in a warm waterfall while her dazzling chocolate eyes took in everything, silently reflecting his own golden ones. She once told him that chocolate was poison to dogs, but he could drink her in for eternity.  
  
She was usually calm, so kind, and would cause herself pain to save others. To save him. He, on the other hand, was usually loud and forceful, inconsiderate, and self-centered. At least, he used to act that way. Rather than give a hug and a reassuring word, he would seek vengeance for the wrongs done to his friends. He had his own way about him. They both were very willful and stubborn.  
  
And though he has never though of himself as particularly smart (only witty enough to taunt), she was so clever! It seemed as if for every ounce of his strength, she had just as much or more intelligence. He learned from her all the time. At times, she was braver than he was. He was the coward afraid of his own emotions. But that old self was no more. She only had to help him once, and then he could trust, and hope . . .  
  
And love.  
  
BUT NOW I'M BOUND BY THE LIFE YOU LEFT BEHIND  
  
YOUR FACE IT HAUNTS MY ONCE PLEASANT DREAMS  
  
YOUR VOICE IT CHASED AWAY ALL THE SANITY IN ME  
  
Forced association had pleased him once, since he originally thought that nothing kept her with him aside from her duty. But that night, her duty ended. The stars were watching the pair intently while they sat under the sheltering branches of the tree that brought them together. He felt his hands trembling under hers as she spoke: "I love you."  
  
He let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding. There were tears after that admission and his own subsequent one, he remembers. There was also laughter that night as well. Besides that, it is all a blur of purple ecstasy to him.  
  
They spoke of many things, including the future that they would weave together. His using the fruit of their previous pursuit to change his form was forgotten in favor of simply enjoying their young love. They agreed to stay in the land they had been together so long in, and built themselves something he had not had since he was very small-a home. Yes, now the wanderer had a home, and love . . . how could it get any better?  
  
THESE WOUNDS WON'T SEEM TO HEAL  
  
THIS PAIN IS JUST TOO REAL  
  
THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH THAT TIME CANNOT ERASE  
  
Oh, but how could he have known? How could he have known that after only nine years of joys and wonderfully dull life it would take hold of her so suddenly? Not that he knew what 'it' was, exactly, since the disease was as inexplicable as it was terrible. All he could see was her eyes shining with tears as she clutched him to herself. That desperate look of someone trying hard to keep control. The blood on his clothes from her violent coughs. Her groans, so frighteningly close to screams. Her warmth fading, fading . . .  
  
Gone.  
  
And then it was winter.  
  
WHEN YOU CRIED I'D WIPE AWAY ALL OF YOUR TEARS  
  
WHEN YOU'D SCREAM I'D FIGHT AWAY ALL OF YOUR FEARS  
  
AND I'VE HELD YOUR HAND THROUGH ALL OF THESE YEARS  
  
BUT YOU STILL HAVE ALL OF ME  
  
He isn't aware that he is crying. When he realizes it, he doesn't care. They come as gulping sobs that haven't shown themselves since reality first sunk in. This lonely field is a strange friend to his sorrow; he comes here so often when he thinks of her.  
  
It only now that he hears her. Trying hard to be quiet and not disturb him, the girl is walking barefooted through the grass behind him, toward him. He swallows his tears and puts on a stronger face though he knows that she can see through it. Standing now, he turns to look at her. She starts, then abandons stealth and runs to his open arms.  
  
"Papa," she sniffs. The wind lifts and toys with her hair, and he remembers it as also being on another person. He rests his hand on her head, now buried in his shirt. I wonder if she was this small when she was young, he thinks, before bursting into furious howls.  
  
I'VE TRIED SO HARD TO TELL MYSELF THAT YOU'RE GONE  
  
AND THOUGH YOU'RE STILL WITH ME I'VE BEEN ALONE ALL ALONG  
  
Her round young face turns upward at his. Looking at him with great, deep eyes, she reaches up to touch his face. He falls into a grave silence. As young as she is, he cannot help believing that he is more child and she is more parent here. She caresses his cheek. "Don't cry anymore."  
  
He inhales sharply, kneels, and squeezes her hard. He will keep this comforting warmth with him always, to remind him of the gentle sunlight of summers past. 


End file.
